Walking on Broken Glass - Christa Allan [5]
“I lost my sanity at the apple juice case,” I repeated to Dolores, the intake clerk who scribbled information onto whatever form they used to admit the inebriated. She placed her pencil on the glass-topped desk, clasped her hands over the clipboard, and peered at me over her reading glasses.
“Were you buying it to mix drinks?” she asked quietly, as if afraid the question would hurt me.
I’m being admitted into rehab by a woman who clearly failed to understand that apple juice mixed with few, if any, hard liquors. My galloping knees knew that was something to be jittery about. Hadn’t I explained the twelve-pack of beer in the grocery cart? Why would I be worried about mixing? Did rehab centers hire teetotalers so they’d never have to worry about employee discounts for services?
“Noooo. It just seemed too overwhelming to decide which brand to buy. You know, the whole cost per ounce thing.”
No doubt Dolores knew I was ready for admission after that, but she persisted. She asked who referred me.
“This was all my friend Molly's idea. She even made the appointment for me. This morning after our walk. Before my husband's golf game ended.” Good grief. My inner child needed a nap.
This information about Molly seemed both unsurprising and amusing to Dolores. “Yes, it often works that way. People see in us what we can’t see in ourselves. Don’t need mirrors here.”
Thirty minutes later, Dolores and I agreed I would voluntarily admit myself the morning of July 4.
Leah Adair Thornton. Age 27. Middle-stage alcoholic.
3
Carl … I’m checking into Brookforest, the rehab clinic …”
Carl looked as if someone was approaching him with a rope and a fast horse.
Seeing his eyebrows almost meet in the middle of his face, I was relieved he’d chosen a table wedged in the corner instead of a booth in the middle of the restaurant.
The strategy Molly and I had concocted was for the night to conclude with my enlightened and sympathetic husband reassuring me all would be well. Already the plan required some tweaking. Maybe, before I blabbered on, I could guarantee background noise by paying a bus-person to strategically drop a tray of dishes.
“How is it that you’ve suddenly decided you drink too much? Maybe it's not the drinking. Maybe you’re just having a nervous breakdown.”
Carl had obviously not read the script I’d mentally prepared for him.
I should have planned this better. Having breakfast as dinner to tell my husband of five years I’m leaving him for a month was probably frowned on by Dolores and the admissions staff at rehab. But after tonight, it might be a new question on the screening test:
“Do you consider breakfast a more appropriate meal at which to reveal your addiction to a loved one?”
When I announced I thought I drank too much, I theorized it’d be best not to be drinking. Although breakfast could be counted technically on the list of acceptable meals for having drinks. On our last visit to New Orleans, we’d reserved a table in the Garden Room at Commander's Palace. I had gauzy memories of sipping mimosas and Bloody Marys, listening to jazz, and sleeping in the taxi on the way back to our hotel. But our local Eggs in a Basket in my little suburban oasis was as far a cry from Commander's as I was from being an angel in a Victoria's Secret commercial.
I managed to remain mute until waitress Tina finished jotting our orders and cruised off in the direction of the kitchen before I answered Carl.
“Right. A nervous breakdown. I’m having a nervous breakdown—in the summer when I’m not teaching.” My drawling sarcasm shifted to rising frustration. “Besides, haven’t those gone out of style? Really, does anyone even have a nervous breakdown in the twenty-first century? What is that anyway?”
Rhetorical question lesson.
“What do you want from me, Leah? I think I’m meeting you for dinner, and you slam me with this?” He slid his fingers into the top pocket of his shirt, reaching for his phantom cigarettes. He quit two years ago, but the gesture lingered.